The World Wide Web is a system of interlinked, hypertext documents that operates via the Internet. With a Web browser, a user at a telecommunications endpoint is able to view Web documents such as Web pages and PDF documents, which typically contain text, images, or other multimedia. Viewing a Web page or other resource on the World Wide Web normally begins with either typing the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) of the page into the browser, or following a hypertext link to that page or resource. A request is then sent to the Web server that corresponds to the typed or selected URI, requesting the resource, which is a Web document that represents the displayable Web page or other content. The browser then renders the page at the endpoint, incorporating the images and other resources as necessary. The rendering produces the on-screen page that the user is able to view on the endpoint's display.
Co-workers or other groups of collaborators routinely need to view the same Web documents as one another. In order to view the same documents, the collaborators, who are often at different telecommunications endpoints, have to provide the URI of each shared document to one other. The collaborators share the URI typically via instant messaging, via email, or verbally by telephone. Additionally, there are many software applications that enable cooperative or collaborative browsing, or “co-browsing,” such as Liveperson, Apple's IChat, Kana's iCare Suite, Voxwire's Rooms, Pageshare, Orbitalk, Webconference, and WebeX. Typically, a desktop computer—having a full-size keyboard, a relatively large display, and optimal Web browsing capability—runs these applications that are often resource intensive.
Sharing the URI across certain types of endpoints—particularly endpoints other than a desktop computer—can prove at times to be inconvenient and unworkable. One such endpoint is a packet-based telephone with multimedia capability, which can provide voice-centric communications with browser support. Although a packet-based, multimedia phone is more enhanced than a voice-only phone in that it has browsing capability, the packet-based phone is often inferior to a desktop personal computer in terms of its user interface, browser, and so forth. For example, an Internet Protocol-based deskset, which is becoming more common in the workplace, might comprise a keypad, some function keys, an enhanced display, and a browser with rudimentary capability, at least in relation to that of a desktop computer browser; as a result, the deskset is not as capable as a desktop computer with respect to sharing Web documents. On these types of endpoints that have a limited user interface or browser capability, sharing a URI can be difficult because it involves typing a URI into a telephone keypad instead of a fully-capable keyboard, which amounts to a tedious and error-prone activity.
What is needed is a technique for improved Web-based document sharing that accounts for a wider variety of telecommunications endpoints, without some of the disadvantages in the prior art.